


First Aid

by Beth Harker (Beth_Harker)



Category: Newsies (1992)
Genre: Blood, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-31
Updated: 2013-07-31
Packaged: 2019-09-27 20:59:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17169290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Beth_Harker/pseuds/Beth%20Harker
Summary: Spot gets in a scrape.  Sarah patches him up, and they talk about poetry.





	First Aid

He’d agreed to meet her here at eight. He’d gotten stabbed at 6:30, and waited until 7:45 to come. It was his policy to keep at least eighty percent of his appointments, but arrive fifteen minutes late to prevent anybody thinking they were too important to him. Showing up fifteen minutes early this one time wasn’t that big a deal. Had to get there before he bled to death and all. 

“I’ll get some rags,” Sarah said, resigned. She pursed her lips in an expression that reminded Spot of her brother, but the next words that came from her mouth never would have come out of the Walking Mouth. “I’m not even going to ask,” she said, and disappeared through the window back into her house. 

She came back with a pitcher of water, and several pieces of clean, white cloth. 

“Sit down,” she said, just as if she wasn’t talking to the king of Brooklyn.

“I’ll sit down if I wanna sit down,” Spot answered on reflex. It was the first thing he’d said to her since arriving, other than hello. 

“Okay,” Sarah said slowly. “Do you want to sit down?” 

“No.” Spot didn’t even want to move, to be honest.

 

Sarah shook her head, but started to rinse the wound while Spot tried not to wince. 

“You should really go to the hospital and get stitches,” Sarah said.

“Don’t you know how to sew?” Spot asked. 

“…Not that kind of sewing.”

“Close enough.” 

“I’m not sure,” Sarah said. Then she sighed. “Please consider holding this cloth over your shoulder while I go inside and find my needle.,” she said. “And if you ever tell Les or David about this I’ll kill you. They wouldn’t blab to Mama on purpose, but Les is nine and David talks in his sleep sometimes… and she would think I’m doing something very stupid right now. Because I am, and so are you.”

Sarah pressed the cloth over the place where Spot was bleeding, and then guided his hand over it. He held on firmly until she came back.

Sewing the wound together Sarah wavered for the first time. She looked like she might be sick. There was blood on her hands, and a little on her skirt. 

“I’ll get you a new skirt,” Spot promised.

“You don’t have to. If you want to get blood out of fabric you spit on it before you wash it. It helps dissolve the blood. I don’t know why.”

“You ain’t gotta do this if you can’t handle it,” Spot said, even though from her last comment Spot guessed she was handling it fine. 

“I can do this,” Sarah said. 

It took a while for Sarah to finish. When she had, she wrapped the cloths tightly around the wound. 

“Keep it clean,” Sarah said. “Please keep it clean, so I don’t feel like I’ve wasted my time. There’s no point in having sewn things up if it just gets infected.” 

“Yeah. I’ll keep it clean,” Spot promised. “Brought back your book.” He reached into his pocket, and handed back the little book of poetry that Sarah had insisted on lending him. There was a bit of dried blood on the corner. Sarah didn’t say anything about that as she took it back.

“How was it?” She asked. 

Spot turned and threw up off the fire escape. In truth, that’s what he’d been trying not to do since he’d first arrived. 

“Shitty,” he said. “Too sentimental.” If he hadn’t just been sick he might have been tempted to say something else. Sarah frowned at him like she didn’t know what to do or say. “Some of the guys liked it,” he added. 

“I’m going to get you another book,” Sarah said. When she returned she had the book, a piece of bread spread thick with something shiny and golden, and a glass of water. 

“You’ll feel better if you eat,” Sarah explained. “It will make up for the blood you lost.”

Spot accepted the bread, taking a bite of it. “What’s that on it?” he asked. 

“Honey.”

Spot nodded. It was a common enough thing, but he’d never eaten it before as far as he could remember. He took another bite, chewing it thoughtfully. 

“The book is just more poems. Try this one on page six. It’s all fire and brimstone.”

“The other one you gave me wasn’t all bad,” Spot admitted. “Liked the one about the tiger well enough.” 

“I liked the way that the author juxtaposed the imagery of the hawk and thd sparrow,” Sarah said. It made Spot smile. It was the kind of thing that could just as easily have come from David’s mouth as hers, but David always said things like that as if he were trying to win a debate, or make sure everybody knew how smart he was, or sometimes he went the other way completely and looked like he was embarrassed for saying them. Sarah just spoke like somebody who loved poetry. 

Spot nodded, and finished his bread. 

“I better go. Get back to Brooklyn.” 

“I suppose those boys can’t survive another couple of hours without you? Mama won’t let me go out at night with David and Jack. She insists it’s too dangerous for a girl.” 

“I’ll tell her I’ll take you across the bridge one night. Ain’t nothing dangerous about it. Not for you at least. You’ve got my permission to be there,” Spot said, rather grandly. 

Sarah surveyed Spots appearance, probably thinking that her Mama would have a conniption. Spot thought it was really too bad that a girl like her got saddled with parents. There were a lot of things that Sarah could be out doing without them, none of which were keeping house and making lace. 

“I’d love to go,” Sarah said rather wistfully, and Spot didn’t think it the time to point out that she probably couldn’t. He’d think of something to get her there, anyways. He owed her a favor now.


End file.
